Market Got Its Excuse to Sell Off
Sorry for the delayed post and missing yesterday. We are migrating to a new host and new website and I got a little sidetracked. I am excited for our new website, www.investfortomorrow.com as well as a much better host. Truth is, if the new company, Digital Ocean, can even fog a mirror, they will be better than where we were for the past decade plus. I can’t even count how many times my email would go down or they would […]
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Date: June 11, 2020
Comparing This Bull Market Launch to 2009
Another new week begins, another pre-market rally in the stock market. I have to continue to say that the strength of the move is beyond unbelievable. I thought it was “unprecedented” until I looked deeper. When the trading range broke last month and I was expecting a possible fakeout, even if I was wrong, I didn’t think stocks would power ahead unabated like this. While people talk about this being “unprecedented”, that’s simply not true. When new bull markets launch, […]
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Date: June 8, 2020
WOW!
That was not supposed to be the headline for this morning. After yesterday I figured the employment numbers would be grim, but stocks would rally again because let’s face it; stocks have rallied on all bad news and pretty much all news. When the May employment report was released at 8:30am this morning, I thought it was a typo. I am sitting there watching it with an incredulous look on my face saying that it had to be wrong. How […]
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Date: June 5, 2020
Trading Range Ends But Bears Fail to Seize Control
Last week I updated my multi-month thesis that the stock market was in a trading range and to be on the lookout for a fake move whichever end was broken first. You can see that depicted in the chart below as stocks broke above the horizontal, blue line. So many times in history, the more obvious a pattern is in the markets and the more widely followed, the more likely the market is to confound the majority. It happens often, but for […]
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Date: June 3, 2020
Sentiment Percolating
Starting in the middle of November 2019, stock market sentiment went from bullish to giddy and then greedy before all was said and done. It had done that before in early 2017, 2018, mid-2011 and clearly during the Dotcom Bubble in 1999 and 2000. Sentiment alone is not a reason for markets to turn although we usually see that ingredient at extremes. Sentiment is also not a perfect timing tool. Remember the old adage that markets can stay irrational longer […]
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Date: June 1, 2020
Initial Jobless Claims – A Look Since March
Thursday is upon us and weekly jobless claims will be reported at 8:30am. The stock market has met every horrific report with intense buying. Many forget that the single worst week has been right around the market bottom on March 23. Since then, weekly new claims have plummeted, but I guess that between PPP and businesses staying open, there are only so many people who could additionally file. The real number is continuing claims which looks like it’s plateauing because […]
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Date: May 28, 2020
More Good News as the Trading Range Breaks Higher
As I mentioned in Friday’ post, not much happened last week after Monday’s sharply higher open. Stocks essentially treaded water and bullishly digested the gains. You could also say that has been the case since mid-April in the major indices with the exception of the NASDAQ 100 which is in a world of its own. Below is the Dow Industrials and you can see the trading range I have been discussing bound by the two horizontal blue lines. A few comments […]
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Date: May 26, 2020
Trading Range Continues. Bonds Thumped. Bulls to Win Today.
As I have been writing about, until proven otherwise which would mean I am wrong, the major stock indices with the exception of the NASDAQ 100 hit a ceiling last week and appear to be in a trading range bound by Dow 25,000 and roughly 22,000. On the S&P 500 that amounts to 2930 and 2630. The NASDAQ 100 is trading like it’s 1999 and all is very well in the world. The longer the range continues, the more significant […]
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Date: May 7, 2020
Warren Buffet Hangover as Bulls Prepare
The bears had a nice close to last week and to begin the new month. I posted a number of studies regarding May and the next 6 months on Friday. The overall theme is that the longer we look out into the future, the more positive the studies. The shorter we look, at least as of last week, the less positive they get. However, in the really short-term, if today is down, which would be the third straight down day, […]
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Date: May 4, 2020
May Begins With a Number of Studies as the Bulls Get Knocked a Bit
On Friday, the stock market technically begins the sometimes “dreaded” sell in May and go away period which last until October 31. This seasonal trend has a questionable track record the more recent you look. However, in years where January through April has been down already, its record has merit. I will touch more on this in the upcoming issue of Street$marts due out shortly. The first trading day of May has an enviably bullish track record, not so much […]
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Date: May 1, 2020
Bulls Seizing the Moment – Junk Bonds Not
On Monday I wrote about the Lines in the Sand that were drawn for both bull and bear. On Tuesday we saw the bulls celebrate with a breach to the upside that could not hold until the close. Today, the bulls are testing the upward bounds again, likely with very different results by the time the day ends. What’s been eating at me lately is high yield bonds as you can see below. They were behaving “fine” until the Fed […]
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Date: April 29, 2020
Bulls & Bears Draw Lines in the Sand
Stocks ended last week with a three day rally that looks to be built upon this morning. The major indices continue to trade in the range I outlined several weeks ago as the likely first bounce. What I did not envision was stocks getting into that range and then essentially going sideways. Historically, that has bullish implications. The first chart below is the S&P 500 on a daily basis so you can see the first bounce range of between 1/2 […]
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Date: April 27, 2020
Airlines Stocks Look Awful While Stock Market Risk Clearly Defined
Yesterday, I wrote about my anger and disgust regarding the airline bailout. That won’t change anytime soon. Today, I want to look at the group and how they have been trading. Below you can see a chart of the airlines as represented by the JETS ETF. Besides declining 65% from high to low since the market’s peak, notice how little green is on the chart. Green days mean the closing price is that much higher than the opening price. Red […]
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Date: April 24, 2020
Angry & Disgusted
Last week, the government announced a deal with the 10 major airlines in the U.S. for outright grants as well as low interest, long-term loans. The government gets very little in return. As you know, I have been imploring the government to do the unfathomable, the unthinkable since early March. Whatever number they had in mind for workers and small business, it wasn’t enough. I also had the utmost confidence that Treasury Secretary, Steve Mnuchin, and Fed Chair, Jay Powell, […]
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Date: April 23, 2020
Oil Trades Below – Dow 40,000???
The oil market has made headlines this year and especially this week with crude oil trading negatively for the first time in history. Yes; you read that correctly. May crude oil closed at -$37 on Monday. However, before you start running out to get paid to own oil, I put together this video to explain what is going on and if the retail investor can take advantage of the crash. If you would rather read a short blog post about […]
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Date: April 22, 2020
RMDs Waived But Mortgage Rates Not Following Bond Market
Recently, I wrote about the April 15 tax filing date being extended to July 15 and the presumption that contributions earmarked for 2019 would also be extended. The IRS confirmed that this week. I also wrote about converting your Traditional IRA to a ROTH IRA, something everyone should consider. Additionally, the recently passed $2 trillion CARES Act did something that I do not believe has ever been done before. It waived the need for people over the age of 70 […]
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Date: April 21, 2020
Fill Your Cars, Top Your Tanks
As we enter a new week and “things” are calming ever so slightly incrementally, crude oil is the story of the overnight as the front month, May, expires and is in total collapse. This is not what it seems on the surface. Yes, crude oil is down sharply again, but the 30% crash has more to do with structure of the commodity contract than a real crash. I need to choose my words carefully and not overwhelm you with lingo. […]
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Date: April 20, 2020
Dow 40,000 Coming But Rest of 2020 Likely Not A Layup
During the vast majority of the bull market from 2009 to 2020, I was always among the most bullish people giving forecasts. I always kidded my buddy Tony Dwyer, market strategist at Canaccord Genuity, that he was the second most bullish person in the industry. I fondly remember Joe Kernen of CNBC Squawk Box fame laughing when I called the Dow to go from 14,000 to 18,000. My 20,000 target was equally dismissed. In late 2016, our model first opened […]
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Date: April 17, 2020
Bulls & Bears Both See Opportunity
Since the most recent rally began on April 2nd, here has the succession of up and down days. Up, down, up, down, up, up, down, up, down. We have not seen back to back down days, just like we never saw back to back up during the entire one month crash. Obviously, the current situation is on a much smaller scale. Wednesday was a down day and as I mentioned on CNBC on Tuesday, it looks like stocks may have […]
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Date: April 16, 2020
Bulls Make Big Progress But a Little Overdone
The bulls had quite the holiday-shortened week last, showing their best performance since 1974 and 1931. Both of those years were in the midst of very strong bear markets if you care. Clearly, what’s going today is without precedent. As I continue to mention, this is the first time in world history where the government shut down our own economy and induced the sharpest contraction ever from a high. On Thursday, we learned that another 6.6 million Americans filed new […]
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Date: April 13, 2020
